A manual tile-cutting machine of known type enables a cut to be made along the upper surface of the tile to be cut, followed by a breaking thereof along the score line by directing a blow onto the tile. In this case the cut is obtained by an score followed by a snapping of the tile.
The manual tile-cutting machine comprises: a polygonal base comprising in turn a pair of plates arranged side-by-side to restingly receive a tile to be cut, and a blade arranged between the plates to abut the lower surface of the tile during the step of scoring the tile, guide means arranged above the base, for example constituted by a guide rail supported by two heads fixed to the base; and a specially-shaped lever able to slide on the guide means, which lever bears a wheel for scoring the tile and small breaker feet for snapping the tile.
The support plates are extractable and elastically constrained to the base.
The lever has on one side thereof a handle for facilitating its movement along the guide means and on the other side bears the breaker feet and the scoring wheel which is aligned to the underlying blade for the purposes of the scoring operations; the lever can further rotate with respect to an axis that is transversal to the guide means, such as to enable the scoring wheel to abut against the tile, as well as the scoring of the tile along the score line and the breaking of the tile by the feet.
As is known, tiles of a certain hardness cannot be cut (i.e. cannot be scored and then snapped, see above) easily: for some types of tile, the scoring and snapping are not possible, or the snapping is done incorrectly, for example along a different line to the score line and in a way that is unpredictable and renders the tile unusable.
In like cases circular saws are used, which comprise an electric motor that draws a diamond cutting wheel in rotation; additionally, the circular saw can be provided with a source of a depression, activated by means of an external supply source or via the actual electric motor of the saw, for aspirating the dust produced during cutting of the tile by the diamond cutting disc.
Manual tile-cutting machines are not therefore suitable for all types of tiles, though they do enable tiles to be cut much more rapidly than with circular saws; the latter are relatively less productive and produce more dust, though they do enable cutting tiles of all types.
Consequently, in order to cut tiles of any type and to maximize productivity both a manual tile-cutting machine and a circular saw are required, which constitutes a disadvantage in terms of occupied space during transport and in the work-site.